


Every Moment I Am With You

by MagusLibera



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode: s08e04 Present Tense, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Missing Scene, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21762007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: Two-Shot of missing scenes from 804.Oliver processes his children's sudden appearance in the present whilst Mia gets stitched up (because where else did all of that blood go?). He then heeds John's advice to take them home and Mia has to deal with being in the place where she was meant to grow up, where evidence of her parents' love is everywhere and she has to deal with meeting her father for the first time in her memory.
Relationships: Connor Hawke/Mia Smoak, Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 6
Kudos: 110





	1. Sweet love of mine

**Author's Note:**

> My internet is still on the fritz so I haven't watched ANY of Crisis STILL and I'm DYING! I can't go on the web, I can't go on YouTube, I can't look at my timeline on Twitter. I DON'T WANT THE SPOILERS BUT THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!
> 
> Sorry, I'm suffering.
> 
> Anyway, now that we're officially in a hiatus, here are some missing scenes from 804! This is part one of two, part two will be coming on Dec 20th AKA the day after I see TRoS and die all over again (because I will also die when I see Crisis and that WILL be before I see TRoS!).

**Chapter I – Sweet love of mine**

Oliver has yet to catch his breath. His children are here. _His children_. From the future. His children from the future who are dirty and bleeding and they are _in pain_. But Mia, his sweet Mia – who really did grow up to be just as smart and beautiful as her mother, exactly as he had predicted – she had _flinched_ away from him. And he realises, she does not know him. She has never known him because, to her, he went off and died before she was even half a year old. All that she has ever known of him is his tombstone, just like William said.

Now… now he has to watch as his daughter – the girl who, when last he saw her, was so tiny that her entire body fit under one of his hands – gets stitched up by his son, whom he has not seen in months but is now suddenly a grownup who never saw his father after they said their goodbyes earlier that year. Mia’s neck is a mess of blood, it has spilled down her entire chest, seeping underneath her top and the actual wound is a long, ugly gash that is thankfully shallow but will probably scar.

His daughter. Scarred. He has never felt like more of a failure.

She still will not let him near her, either. When he attempted to lead her to the med bay to get her cleaned and staunch the crimson flow down her throat, she had flinched away once again, turning to her brother instead. One half of him is bursting with joy to see the clear trust and love between the two of them. The other half breaks at the thought that Mia cannot stand so much as the thought of her father touching her. Not even to help heal her. That is supposed to be _his job_. His most important calling, making his children feel better.

Whilst he may have memories that are only a few weeks old of holding her, of rocking her to sleep, of bottle feeding her whenever Felicity was too exhausted to breastfeed, of being her protector, she has nothing. No memories. Only whatever second hand information she has been able to glean from her family. Oliver has no idea how much, or what, that information might be.

Mia does not even twitch as the needle repeatedly pierces through her skin. She is used to this, getting stitches. As much as Oliver would like to pretend that the reason for her nonplussed attitude is that she was such a rambunctious child that she constantly found herself in the hospital and so is familiar with the process, he knows that the true reason is that she is used to getting her battle scars sewn up. He wonders exactly what battles, and how many, she has faced. More than he ever wanted her to, he is sure. Though one would be too many for him.

The careful precision of William’s movements also speaks of his experience with the needle. Oliver envisions a sudden flash of himself in Mia’s position and Felicity in William’s. Overwatch nursing the Green Arrow back to health. They say that every parent’s dream is for their child to follow in their footsteps. Oliver would prefer if his children had avoided their parent’s legacy in this instance.

This life of pain and separation and heartache is one that he would not wish on anybody, not his worst enemy let alone his children. But he must concede that, without this life, he would not even have a wife. William would probably still be a distant memory of loss and not the perfect son that he has had the chance to get to know. Mia would not even exist. There would be no brotherhood with John, no Team Arrow, and Oliver cannot bring himself to regret a minute of his past, only the minutes of his future.

Oliver flutters around his two children, not noticing the angry concern on his friend’s future adopted son’s face as he does so. Not noticing how clearly and desperately the boy wants to go to his daughter. Needing to be involved, to do something to help his little girl’s agony go away, he gathers up literally everything that is in the Bunker and that can be used to sterilise a wound and prepares it all for William’s use.

Once William is done, the only evidence left of Mia’s injury is the blood soaked gauze and the thin line of black suture thread mostly hidden by her long waves of hair. The colour of which has settled somewhere between the blonde shades of Donna Smoak and Oliver’s own hair. The texture is all Dearden. The wavy noodles that Thea characterised have been copied over to his daughter, just like their shared eyes.

William looks identical to his younger self. He is still a brunette version of his father. Older, more filled out and world weary than the child that Oliver knows, but the same nonetheless. It is eerie but it allowed Oliver to recognise the both of them as soon as the bright light faded. Looking at the two of them takes Oliver back to every time he looked at his wife and son side by side. Mia is the spitting image of Felicity. The look in her eyes, though, that is all Oliver.

The team displaced in time take themselves away from those merely displaced in space and have a moment to process what has happened together. To figure out what has happened and what will happen next. Oliver is loath to be more than two metres from either of his kids, but he recognises both their need to get themselves together and his obligation to explain what is happening, and why he and John and their future children just magically appeared in the Bunker where Dinah and Rene were finishing up a mission. Rene makes a joke. Oliver, unsurprisingly, is not impressed, not finding _anything_ about the situation funny.

The last thing that Oliver wants to do is ignore what has happened in favour of acknowledging everybody’s need to do things like eat and sleep but his children are exhausted, Mia was bleeding out only a moment ago, and he can barely understand anything right now anyway, so he agrees. Agreeing feels like an especially good decision once John, eternally wise John, suggests that Mia and William go home with him and Connor with his own father. That’s going to take some getting used to.

William jumps on the opportunity to return to their home and Mia reluctantly goes along with him, fearing being away from him even more than she clearly fears going to the place where all three members of her family once had a home.

For the first time, Oliver takes both of his children home. Together.

Wishing that Felicity could be with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you in 9 days when I've seen EVERYTHING!


	2. a warm safe place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mia deals with being in the home that her family once had. Before she even existed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm back with the final chapter of this little two-shot. I'm an hour late, my time but oh well! I am also fully caught up on both Crisis and Star Wars so spoilers can't hurt me now and I can finally use the internet again! Yay!
> 
> As with chapter one, this chapter title is from the Guns N' Roses song Sweet Child O' Mine, which is a little hint about my next little fic which should be coming just in time for the twelve days of Christmas.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

**Chapter II – a warm safe place**

Leading his children into their home is bittersweet for Oliver. This moment should have been wonderful. His arms should have been full with his babbling daughter in one of her adorable little onesies, his wife’s laughter should have been filling his ears, his son should have still only come up to his chin, as he would have ambled in, arms laden with Mia’s toys and a grin should have been adorning his face.

Not this. Not his son, standing mere inches shorter than himself and commenting on how the place has not changed since he was thirteen, which for him is twenty years in the past. Not his daughter, still tiny but in a way entirely different to what he knows, looking around at an apartment that she has clearly never been in before. Not his wife, miles away with their baby, all alone, not seeing the incredible sight of their children before him.

As Mia cautiously makes her way into their apartment, he apologises for the boxes. Her curious gaze falls upon each one of them, taking in the décor that he and Felicity chose, the bones of the place where she should have been raised. Her eyes land on the turned up photo on the coffee table. An image of her parents from when they were happy, when they had first got together and were travelling the world free of the burdens of their lives and responsibilities. She appears almost shocked as she looks back up at him, something about the photo clearly not sitting right with her and what she knows. Oliver yearns to know exactly what it is that she is unable to make sense of.

Her expression quickly turns to anger when he tells them of the plans to bring them back here, blame clear in her voice as she informs him that they never came to fruition. He recognises himself in her, so responds bluntly, knowing that is the best way to deal with her right now. Before the two of them can get into it, William interjects. Every time William opens his mouth, he seems to deliver more bad news about the future, so Oliver attempts to direct conversation to something more positive, fishing for information on his children’s childhoods and his wife. It works in the exact opposite way that he had intended, not only breaking his heart as he learns that his children never got to grow up together, but also causing for Mia to pull away even more, refusing to interact with him.

He directs her to the room that should have been hers, but is currently set up for guests before turning back to his son. His heart is heavy, still hurting from the pain that he had seen on Mia’s face when he told her to make herself at home, as he pulls out his phone to call his wife, needing to hear her voice after the day that he has had. Needing to share this with her.

Putting his phone away at William’s recommendation almost physically hurts, so he tries to distract himself by asking for some good news about their future. William, somehow managing to so obviously be Felicity’s son even though he had only known her for two years, brings him some joy through the heartbreak. He tells him about his success, his coming out, his sister. Oliver finds himself in awe of his son.

They talk for a wonderful hour, before William can no longer hold back the yawns and Oliver suggests that they make their way to bed. As he himself goes through the motions of getting ready, he can hear his son’s exclamations of joy as he finds things that he has not seen for twenty years, and he finds his bedroom untouched. When they had left for Bloomfield, they had left it as it was. Anything that William wanted with him he had already taken, so they kept his room in their apartment and made him a new one in their cabin, ready for their son to come home.

Which, obviously, will never happen.

*************************

Mia cannot quite make sense of the maelstrom of emotion tearing through her. She is in her family’s _home_. The place where her mother and father had lived with her brother. The place where they had been happy. Where she had been conceived and her brother had lived with their parents. Where she should have grown up, her family around her.

There are so many things that she needs to process, but cannot. Losing Zoe, seeing her dad, seeing their apartment, the picture of her parents, her brother’s excitement, her father’s desire to get to know her, the room that is intended for her. _Everything_. It is completely overwhelming. For the first time in a very long time, Mia feels tears welling up in her eyes as she finds herself incapable of comprehending it all. She collapses into the bed, exhaustion overtaking her and letting her drop into a deep sleep, still fully clothed.

*************************

Waking up brings Mia a sense of panic as she initially does not recognise where she is. Frantically, she looks around, taking stock of the room before she remembers. The blood, the light, the Bunker, the apartment. It all hits her once again.

Being more rested makes her thoughts more coherent, allowing her to sift through them one at a time rather than all of them making their way to the front of her mind at the same time. She starts with the room that she is in – her room, which she is glad exists because sleeping in her parent’s bed where they… did stuff, where they _made her_ would be extremely weird – it is painted in a light green colour. The shade is similar to that of her childhood bedroom. There is clear evidence scattered around that they were beginning to convert the space into one designed for an infant. Whilst the guest’s double bed is still present, the rest of the space is filled with new furniture, an unmade crib, a changing table. Her father’s work.

She makes her way out of the room, looking for a bathroom to freshen up in. There are subdues sounds coming from the family space, her father must be doing something in there because William would never be up before she is. An idea sparks, and she cannot shake it, so she takes advantage of her father’s distraction and steals into his room.

The bed is neatly made, almost like it had not even been slept in, but the rest of the space is an homage to her parents’ relationship, and their family. Some things are clearly missing, photographs taken to Bloomfield and clothes and furniture missing. But the rest of it is a clear blend of the two of them. Oliver’s minimalist style touched up by her mother’s bright and eccentric flourish.

On the bedside table, there are two small printed photos. One features a younger, happier Felicity. Long blond hair framing a smiling, wrinkle-free face. Her mother is wearing glasses. Her mother _never_ wears her glasses. Next to her is a young brunette boy. In spite of the childish, rounded face, the boy is clearly her brother. They clearly love one another dearly. The other photo, Oliver is actually in. He is looking adoringly into the eyes of his wife, his hand encompassing hers as they cradle a baby’s head. As they cradle Mia’s head. They look so happy, so proud. Even though she knows this photo, even though she grew up with it in her house and even accidentally shot it once, Mia cannot help but think of the picture on the coffee table, Oliver’s arm wrapped around Felicity. The two of them leaning into one another, completely at peace. For the first time, she truly thinks about that photo, and draws a comparison between what she has seen of her mother, her father and the images that she has seen of the two of them.

Mia realises that has never seen her mother like she is in any of these photographs. She has never seen her truly happy. Even though Felicity had been joyful, proud, loving, there had always been an undercurrent of pain and sadness and regret. The phantom ghost of her long lost husband swimming in her mind in every moment. In every interaction with their daughter.

After freshening up, and shaking those thoughts away, she finds the courage to make her way into the family space where she knows her father must be. He looks up as she enters, “Hi.” A hesitant smile pulls at the corners of his mouth.

“Hi.” She replies, wary.

“Do you want some breakfast?”

Taken aback, she nods. She could eat some cereal.

“What do you want? Eggs? Pancakes? I make a good omelette, unlike your mom.” He smiles to himself.

“You have pancake mix in?” she would have thought that they would take leftover food with them.

“No!” he protests, almost affronted, “I have flour, sugar and eggs in. I would _never_ make you pancakes from a mix. Do you know what sort of preservatives and chemicals are in those things, Mia? It’s about as unhealthy as it gets.”

She never thought that she would get to see this, her father talking about food, but here he is. Here they are, just like Felicity always said it would be. She correctly assumes that sugary cereal is off the table for as long as he is around, “Okay. Pancakes would be nice.” She placates, knowing enough to take advantage of the fact that _any_ sugar has been offered to her in the first place.

They stay quiet as he mixes and cooks the batter, adding blueberries because of course he would add fruit instead of chocolate. He saves some mix for William, before plating the cooked goodies up and offering them to her.

“Syrup and butter?” she asks.

He sighs, but hands both to her.

As she eats, she finds herself unable to tear her eyes away from the photo that has now been settled upright on the coffee table. Oliver clearly notices.

“Have you seen that photo before?” he questions.

“No.” is her only response.

“Oh. Do you know what it is off?” he presses.

Huffing, she replies “You and Mom.”

Oliver lets a chuckle escape him, “Yeah, that’s true. It was taken in Positano. Your mom and I went there for three whole weeks during our summer travelling together. It was so beautiful, we were so happy.”

“I’ve never seen her like that.” Mia admits.

“Like what?” Oliver frowns, perking up at the mention of his wife’s future.

“Happy. Free. Able to just enjoy life. She has always been so serious. Paranoid, overprotective. She looks so carefree in that photo but that’s not the Felicity that I know. You both look so in love but how could you love her like that and still leave her?” the words spill out from her.

“Mia.” Oliver almost pleads, not knowing what to say, agony written in every line of his body.

“Don’t. Just forget I said anything.” She storms away, going back to her room. On her way, she passes William in the hall, the conversation clearly having woke him up.

“Mia?” he asks as she flies past him. She does not stop to talk.

*************************

A short while passes before she hears a knock on the door. She tenses, expecting her father’s unwelcome voice, but instead she hears William. He offers her clothes, reminding her that they need to go back to the Bunker so that they – he – can figure out what is happening. Why they have jumped through time and what can be done about it. She takes the clothes, finding that they fit quite well, if not a little baggy. She realises that they must be Felicity’s. Her mother’s clothes. It is surreal.

Oliver does a double take when he sees her, needing a moment to process her appearance. When he finally does, he says “Mia… you look just like your mother. You’re like your mother with bits of your Aunt Thea thrown in. It’s like looking back in time.”

Feeling awkward, she just nods. It is then that she notices the open boxes in the room. “What happened there?” she jerks her chin towards one.

“We were looking for some of Mom’s old stuff.” William answers, emerging from his room. “I need to do some work and to do that, I need tech.” as if to prove his point, he is already tinkering away with something, concentration written across his face.

“Oh.” She finds that her feet have taken her towards the open boxes and subsequently her father, who is staring at William with an open fondness that she had never expected to see from him. Practically without her permission, she finds her hand reaching into the box to see what is in there.

It is further evidence of her family. The life that they had, that they left behind. The love that her parents shared and her father gave up to go on his stupid mission, choosing heroism over family.

And that thought – the one that has haunted her for her entire life, which has been on the forefront of her mind ever since that light obscured her vision and she opened her eyes to find herself in a different place, a different time, that she cannot imagine an answer too no matter how hard she tries – it rears its head once again.

If he truly loves them as much as he seems to in all of the stories and picture and in real life too, how could he leave them?

Mia fears that she may never know the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Mia. *sigh* You will understand one day.

**Author's Note:**

> Any mistakes are on me.
> 
> I'm on Twitter [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera). Or I will be on twitter again... once I'm caught up.


End file.
